Welcome to my first Web-Book, a new interactive and visual way to read and comprehend.
The best way to read this Web-Book is via the link list that is provided on the right-hand column of the blog. These links are synched together via two separate blogs (My Story and Sonny's Story)
Although it is recommended to read the Web-book by the sequence provided on the link list, you are more than welcome to randomly browse the modules below to sample and try out certain chapters or certain topics that interest you.
This Web-Book implements the "RUNIN" format -- a logical and effective way to better understand and frame the content. Click herefor more information on what "RUNIN" means and stands for.
This Web-Book also employs Social Media Widgets and visualization techniques extensively thus providing a broader and deeper understanding.
For more information on the theme and how to read the Web-Book, please click here. Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoy the reading experience.
The very next weekend, my exploration of this forgotten forage continued with passion and service like it was my voyage to capture and re-purpose; the lifelong explorer and adventure-seeker I've always aspired to know, wanted to behold... I yearned for a clearer vision of what existed now and what lay ahead for me, my subtle inhibitions, my forever eternity.
Understanding
During the week I had filled my hours and after hours with intensive homework. I read up voraciously on Anacostia or anything vaguely related, past and present...future. I spoke with people in the physical and in the emerging virtual who had known Washington or grown there or sown their roots there. And by the week's end, I had gained invaluable insight into why Anacostia is such the state of mind and decay, yesterday and abundantly today. View Larger Map
Negotiating
When I drove down there the next weekend, I was deeply aware of the area’s notoriety for drug turf wars on the streets and alleyways, in the courtyards and stairways. The drive by shootings for no reason at all, the hold up just for a scrambled up pocket of bills and change. I heard anecdotally from people who knew or professed to know: You were in danger of getting shot at just because you were not from the area or were from a different block or street. High schools pitted against other high schools. Streets versus streets, block versus block, alley vs alley. That seemed to be the only line of segregation. There was just one race in Anacostia -- black Americans. A white man or any type of man with sane mind or mindful soul would not dare even drive through. At worst, he would be shot at. At best, the cops would pull him over and inquire whether he was buying drugs or shopping for street walkers who boosted the local crack-whore economy here.
I listened intently, showing interest, immersed but tempered with a large grain of salt choking skepticism. I would definitely pay heed to their yearnings and warnings, but once again the explorer in me wanted to see, wanted to visualize, wanted to feel.
Driving down Martin Luther King Ave, I could see a group of about twenty ruffians with dirty, disheveled appearance, milling around the run-down liquor store at the corner, whiling away their time by staring and yelling at passing cars. In an unexpected move, an elderly man with an unkempt grey beard that fell to his chest, jumped off the sidewalk gesturing wildly. I instinctively stepped on the brakes. “No carryout,” he commented in a jeering tone, referring to the ubiquitous carry-out Chinese food shops all over the city. This joke at my expense provoked a wave of derisive laughter from the rest of the men. I shot him a look of pure disgust. The car behind me honked violently, jerking my attention back to the traffic I was holding up. I shrugged off my annoyance at this uncalled for provocation by the street corner drunks, and hesitantly turned right to head down Lebaum Street, unsure of where this would lead.
I remembered my trip down memory lane last week and the remnants of gracious living down Alabama Avenue. That seemed a world away as I courageously continued down the rough and pitted Lebaum Street. Neglected, dirty-looking apartment buildings and empty soda bottles appeared to be the signature of the area, as were the formidable-looking ghetto youth who hung out on the sidewalks as if they leased it and in the back alleys doing whatsoever they pleased like it was none of your business.
Amidst the squalor and lurking danger of this street, my attention was suddenly captured by a forlorn-looking, worn down, weary-windowed, red-brick house -- 500 Lebaum Street. View Larger Map
In this two-story Cape Cod house, the roof sidings were hanging by a thread, waiting for the next puff of wind to blow them away. The weather-beaten roof had layer upon layer of scrambled up tile. The two front windows were boarded up, and shattered glass lay scattered on the unkempt grass next to bottle caps and bottle rockets and traces of hand-rolled joints ditched carelessly in a wreckless foam of unknown. Malicious streaks of graffiti smeared one forgot-about wall and empty beer bottles and crushed soda cans littered the sidewalk. The front yard was cluttered with a worn and loosely scratched dining table and four dirty-looking half-broken chairs tossed about. Close to the retainer wall were boxes overflowing with untidily packed clothes. The very air was filled with desolation and abandon. I was intrigued. Was this house up for sale? Was it an eviction? It had definitely seen better days – that was for sure, but how long ago and how much longer before it would get to know them again. I parked my truck cautiously across the street, and sat stoically, debating the prescient wisdom of leaving the safe confines of my vehicle. I had served in the military for 14 years, and had been deployed to a war zone thrice, but this time the prescibed tasking was of a completely different nature and non-mission essential to boot. I carefully felt my side for my sheathed Leatherman hunting knife, reassured to know that it stood rigidly against my side and on ready. With my left hand, I carried my latest CDMA cell phone equipped with a digital camera and 911 smartly pre-programmed that can be activated with a simple push of an emergency button. I opened my car door cautiously, stepped onto the premises hesitantly. The boarded up windows were dirty and eerie-looking. I felt a shiver of apprehension run straight through me but couldn't opt to escape. As I trod warily to the backyard, I was accosted by more shabby furniture and many more boxes of clothes thrown willy nilly. What was inside, I didn't seem to want to gander. Perhaps the clothes was just a mischievous, misleading front; buried deep down inside lay a lonely hand, belonging to a body, it no longer knew, a body the world had long abandoned. The 14k gold wedding band that for the majority of its years it became an intimate part of now was hawked at a District corner pawn shop for a dime to buy just a whiff of crack. It gave me the creeps just imagining, just thinking the perhaps..my inner being revolted, I simply wanted to run and embrace even the worst I could possibly dare to dream. The scary, isolated atmosphere was beginning to penetrate my very being that even the color of my skin started to change. I had turned for a lingering moment to retrace my steps. But incomprehensibly my body didn't want to move. Rebelling, it no longer responded to split second impulses from my mindless cranial cavity. For some soiled reason, images of some soulful moments in some so-distant past unwittingly came flooding in. Then like a pulled trigger on a perpetually-cocked handgun, I started to remember that forsaken story of forgotten hopes and unforgiven dreams. I could not simply just stop and applaud without being a primary part of it. Could I walk away from indigence and oppression? Could I walk away from wide scale depravity and potential? Then as my mind resurfaced, I turned around to scope my horizons. Could I walk away from some of the most awe-inspiring views of this city that bore my hope.
Just moments ago, on another depraved road, I stood among the trees on an incline gazing spellbound at a panoramic view of Washington DC, stretching as far as the eye could see, beyond the Capitol “Hill”, beyond the Washington Monument, over the heads of the rich and the powerful, towards the bleak, wintry skies. It was as if a profound statement was being made by the poor and forgotten rest of us in Anacostia.
Photo of the new city from the Anacostia Gateway, courtesy of Anacostianow.blogspot.com
The little town in the Nation's Capital began to be plagued by various drug problems, the secondary but most primary effect being the violence associated with distribution. Street “crews” would operate and pervade various neighborhood corners uptown and downtown with virtual impunity, as if they were street legal. Cocaine and crack gradually was perceived by some to be the city’s most prodigious industry. Streets were no longer referred to by landmarks.Instead, there were the drug streets each assigned their own drug crew notoriously run by the seemingly-invincible drug kings who nobody dared to mess with, not even the Five-O. The druggies werestreet-wise--they would never be caught dead with merchandise, but instead buried their wares underneath rocks, bricks, scrap tires, anything that a tout can craftily store his goods under and get his own kicks.If someone from Barry Farms, Condon Terrace or Wheeler Road decided to snitch to Seven-D (DC Police, 7th District), there was always the very real danger of serious repercussion -- getting hurt or worse honorable mention in tomorrow’s crime blotter.On street corners and playgrounds, kids perennially skipping grade school could rant with peculiar accuracy, the names of inner-city star dopers and touts in their neighborhoods, and the going rate for their wares.They uttered names and figures like some kids boasted batting averages of their favorite Major League All Stars in more peaceful neighborhoods.These "Children in the Hood' knew enough of drugs to recite the color, taste, and smell of heroin, cocaine, and marijuana, and rattle off the colors in a rainbow comprised of weed, pills and powder. Social workers working through the weekend in neglected pockets in Southeast on both sides of the river knew the names of such kids and were apprised of their issues -- sometimes even being more familiar than children of their own.As they ripped and wrote sheets after sheets of crumbled picture board, they utterly came to the bitter conclusion that the reason why so many inner-city children ended up involved in drugs was because they had no male authority figure at home they called “Dad.”
Many parents of these kids involved with drugs are the unwed mothers of Generation Y in the '70s and 80’s, who are bringing up their children by trial and error. In the absence of a properly structured family setup, kids form relationships with those who feed their hearts, their pockets and their egos.
If their peers are into drugs, it does not take long for the kids to fall prey to the sinister power of illicit trafficking also. Perception overrules and as they groom their image, these kids do not look upon drugs as something illegal. And when drugs bring in pocket money, enough cash to sample and perhaps ham on the kitchen table, it is viewed as a vice that is immensely positive in an economically deprived and repressed society.
Related Stories:
Washington City Paper, "Invisible Man", Jason Cherkis, Jul 6, 2001
What kept churning in my mind was how to get on with the repairs in any logical sense. I knew construction like I knew homemaking and despised it as much as I loved to go shopping for a new wardrobe in the Pentagon City Mall. Frankly, I needed the on-the-job training from a construction worker as well as a full team of laborers to complete all the repairs.
Where would I start? At the very beginning, of course, after everything was torn our and the dust had cleared. I had decided from the start that Billy wore the foreman's hat. Maybe he wasn’t the brightest bloke in this world, and he could do with more than a few strokes of refinement. But he had a personal stake in this house he grew up in, some tiny wisps of attachment to a past long gone. And just as he introduced me to the house in the first place, now he could round up a scraggly group of guys for for electrical, plumbing and repair work.
Besides being the foreman, I assigned Billy to be the overall fix-it man. Where he fell short on the art of supervision, he had the cunning skill to grasp and remember shortcuts. I was impressed by his resourcefulness in removing wallpaper. If you would think about it, it is so simple, commonsensical. It is just that such things don’t strike you until you see it with your own eyes. John made hundreds of holes in the wallpaper with a scoring tool, and then sprayed a mixture of water and vinegar on the walls. The wallpaper soaked overnight and the next morning, it came off in the hands like orange peel.
John introduced me to Monty Freeman, a thin, boyishly handsome son jack-of-all-trades who looked taller than his 5’8.” He insisted on referring to himself not as a contractor but as “a craftsman” first upon his introduction to me and then on a regular basis, as if to keep reminding me to treat him with respect. An ex-Navy aviation electrician's mate, he possessed undoubted manual dexterity in handling tools and machinery. Having been a sailor aboard the U.S.S. John F. Kennedy back when it was a brand new ship, he was trained to troubleshoot and repair the complex electronic and communications equipment aboard aircraft and became quite adept at conducting maintenance. He apparently loved his job and became quite proficient at it. It was heartening to see some one take so much pride in his work. The only military veteran of the group, he had quite a staggering experience as a heating and refrigeration mechanic, considering his rather uninspired childhood in the neighborhood of Anacostia. The last he remembers of his schooldays is being a rambunctious student in the very last 6th grade class at Congress Heights Middle School which was built in the 1800s and was one of the oldest school structures in DC. The school itself was a study in contrasts, resembling an ornate castle juxtaposed between rundown, vacant buildings and overgrown, littered lots of the battered and easily-forgotten environs of Congress Heights. This community had long been one of the poorest in the District. One could stand there and see large tracts of dirty brick apartment complexes, neglected and never-spoken of, broken down or boarded up, everywhere was the unmistakable stamp of poverty and deprivation. Remnants of this deprived past clung to Monty as he bargained and negotiated with dear life as if he had to fend for himself against all the other hoodlums and thugs in the neighborhood where we all were easy targets for crime.
With his obvious technical skills, he would have had a good future in the Navy but for the daunting obstacle of his complete revolt against the rigidity of the military hierarchy. Monty wanted to work in his own time, at his own pace and the way he wanted – in other words, he wanted to be his own boss, which was hardly possible in the Navy. He refused to be confined by a complex set of rules and more often than not found a way out of them. May be he did it once too often and got marching orders.
However, looking back on his seafaring days, Monty cannot but agree that he had a good time. He cherished the days let loose in liberty in wild ports like Palma, Spain and Sigonella, Italy. He enjoyed the passion and caresses from the healthy, sultry Mediterranean women who knew exactly how to please a man especially after a long period at sea. The extent of the sexual heights he reached at the hands of brown-haired bombshells was never relived ever again, not even in his most intimate dreams. Each experience made him lust for another woman, then another, then another. The variety was fascinating. Their passion and sexual awareness were amazing. His own sexual prowess was sharpened minutely with the training he received at the hands of experienced women. The stories he related had the men’s eyes glinting. Even though he threw military discipline to the winds in these escapades and he rebelled against it all the time, he still understood the meaning behind such discipline and training and that was what drew me to the man despite other negative factors in his character. In a strange, silent way, he and I understood each other at various levels of communication, for we were both a part of the Navy.
I assigned Monty to install the electrical system in the basement and to do some basic electrical repairs upstairs - a straightforward, clean and easy job. After all, it didn't take a whole lot of lifting, cutting, or scrubbing to lay electrical wiring and to install a switchboard. However, there were instances I regretted this decision, especially when the process became intricate and he started becoming difficult. In particular, Monty had lofty ideas when it came to payment. He had listened to me nonchalantly, with pretended indifference, as I outlined my plans. Then he looked at me blandly before his face broke into a monkeyish grin.
“I’ll charge you $12,000 for wiring the whole house—basement, ground, attic - all,” he announced emphatically.
I could not believe what I heard. “What?”
“ I said 12,000. That is cheap.”
“No, Monty, no way. My entire budget is $15,000. That is out of the question.”
My firm voice got Monty’s attention.
“OK, I’ll make it 10,000. You gotta a deal.”
I shook my head silently, my brows furrowed at this unexpected hurdle in cost. Monty pursed his lips obstinately.
“I can’t go lower than $9,000,” he muttered sullenly.
“5,000 – take it or leave it,” I said, with a firm resilient voice.
“F*** that, Mr. C, you gotta be kiddin’. I can’t make a living on that. I‘ve got bills to pay, my man. You’re in the military. The Navy will take care of you. Not this nigga. I could be sleeping on the streets tomorrow.”
Monty gave a hard, bitter laugh that dripped with self-mockery. The sardonic edge to his tone gave me visions of Monty teetering on the edge of eviction, eating pork and beans with the homeless. Did I have the heart to go ahead? I sighed with exasperation as my determination lost its momentum.
“All right, 7,500, but don’t push me, Monty because that is the absolute most I will give you.”
Monty had learned at every point in his life that it was unforgivable for a black man to show emotion. Whatever the blows life dealt him, he had to accept the pain stoically and carry on. But the travails of the black man had taken less traumatic turns over the past several years and now it was no sin for a black to show emotion. A ripple of relief quivered through his sagging shoulders that imperceptibly lost their droop as they were fortified by the hope infused by my words. Where was this leading me now?
Monty seemed ready to gallop another mile, his thoughts forging ahead onto untrodden territory.
“Hey C, my man, how about HVAC? Why don’t I do it all for $15,000?”
I was more than mildly irritated. Had he listened to anything I said before? How do you deal with exasperating rascals who never accepted the word “No”?
“Come on, Mr C, it’ll raise the value of your house."
Monty had renovated several houses for millionaire realtor Debby Jackson that had been so torn apart that sane people wouldn’t dare step inside those structures for fear of collapse.Monty and his partner Gameel performed miracles overnight.When they were through, the rickety dwellings often looked healthier than newly built houses.
“Monty,” my voice was icy with annoyance and intransigence. “I do believe you want to do the work I assigned you. If you try your luck too far, you just might find yourself out of a job.”
Monty stared at me as if I was some alien landed on the earth. He opened his mouth to carry on his vein of conversation, then thought better of it and shut up. I guess being street-smart also involves a shrewd assessment of when to leave off bargaining and accept what is offered. As I could see, his only saving grace but a considerable one, was that he was a decent contractor when he wasn't drunk or high on drugs. But more often than not, he was high on crack, booze, or both. There were the occasional days that he combined a deadly cocktail of crack, whiskey and a cigarette dipped in embalming fluid and came to work with bloodshot eyes and horribly slurred speech. And then his mind would definitely not be on Lebaum Street, but out somewhere in the choppy Atlantic and his work would be crappy at best.
Jimmy Davis was to be the carpenter. I scrutinized with eagle eye, this light-skinned man not quite a six-footer, with an unkempt, steely gray beard and a bald pate he insisted on keeping covered with a hat even when he was indoors. I got the impression of a man who had allowed life to pass him by swiftly and inconsequentially so that now, with the best years behind him, there was nothing to write home about, nothing at all. He walked with a slight hump on his back but the steely bands of muscle on his forearms told their own powerful story. Despite his premature aging, he still had strength in his body and I would put it to good use, I promised myself silently. As I discovered later, for some obscure, unfathomable reason, women found Jimmy charming. Maybe it was his caramel-colored complexion or the obvious masculinity he exuded with his wild facial hair. Several times, I myself was witness to his obvious popularity with the women of the streets in the area. Once we had stopped at the traffic lights at Congress Heights, and Jimmy seated by my side waved and hollered at all the sleazy-looking women who passed by. I felt distinctly uncomfortable as the women all showered him with attention while also gazing at me with obvious curiosity.
“Hey,” he yelled at the top of his lungs at an olive-skinned female in a skin-tight skimpy skirt and see-through blouse. “You look mighty fine today.” She looked his way and then smiled in recognition. “Well thank you. I’ve been missing you, Baby,” she responded loud in a sultry voice dripping with invitation.
“You know I’ve missed you and I haven’t gotten none since. Will you give me some of that fine cooty, baby?” I noted with rising concern that Jimmy was getting aroused. For the love of heaven, please let the lights come on. But they seemed in no hurry and neither was the hooker. She leant against the truck door, her cheap, strong perfume wafting into the truck. She carried on huskily, “I’m savin’ it for you, hon. Hey, who’s that driving the truck?”
“Oh that’s my bodyguard, Jet Li. He won’t mess with you.”
At that moment, I could have cheerfully throttled Jimmy, and, as if to prevent any further escalation of unwanted passions, the lights changed and I pushed the gas pedal with all my might. Jimmy chuckled as if he could read my thoughts.
In spite of all these diversions, I was quite impressed with Jimmy’s philosophy on life and felt that John had picked the right man to be the carpenter. Jimmy explained to me how it important it was to lay out the floor plan and to measure everything to the “T.”
I was particularly taken up with his comparison of carpentry and construction to a chess game, stressing on patience, planning and concentration. “You can’t just go for the easy option. You have to go for what’s beyond and you have to get a feel for what’s happening on the board.” So, true, I thought to myself, when you take a step back and try to think objectively, it all made a lot of sense. I could see that it all required calculation and careful planning.
Jeff Bishop, the sunny-tempered, pleasant-faced former crack addict whose plump mien always lights up with a smile, is a pipe fitter by trade. Never daunted by squalid, filthy environs, he religiously lives by his motto: nothing is too heavy or too messy for him to deal with. His job may not rank too high in prestige, but his skills are undeniably in high demand and he has no qualms about charging an extremely high premium for it.
He is indiscriminate about location and takes on plumbing jobs in every nook and cranny of the city, and when it gets to the sewer business, the mess is unbelievable. Yet, he is able to take in all in his stride, after all, what matter, if in the end it brought him the green bucks. Jeff has volumes of such squalid stories in his memory bank he would relate to create a diversion in the monotony of the tedious renovations. He told grimy, sordid stories of working on the condos on Danbury St SW, near South Capitol Street where sewer lines of individual buildings were never connected to the city's sewer lines. And so it happened that for a good 20 years, the waste from the bathrooms ran into the ground and eventually seeped through the basement walls, oftentimes creating visible pools of sewage. Homeowners had to install a sump pump that worked 24 hours a day to pump raw sewage out of the basement and out onto the back alley. The ensuing revolting situation defied description, with toilets stopping up and drinking water becoming contaminated. Eventually the city gave up and demolished the buildings. Jeff spoke of stories that the city had worked out a deal with Centex Homes, an established builder known for constructing upper middle class town houses in the past. It would a first for Centex Homes to build housing in the city and it would not be long before they realized this was a different kettle of fish. I was going to make Jeff responsible for unclogging my drains, for installing two new bathrooms and for replacing faulty plumbing. Intuitively I knew he would do a good job.
As for myself, being the homeowner, I had to be anywhere and everywhere at the same time. Granted that I had no handy skills, but I would assist wherever and whenever needed. Mine was the vision that guided the whole project, and so, with aesthetic sense bolstered by exotic imagination, I would be the architect and lay out the floor plan for our new and improved basement. Furthermore, being the prospective owner I would have to make tough decisions. The final ruling on all things would rest with me. Not that I had the faintest idea how it would work out with this motley crew, but I was determined to make it work. I would learn with experience how to be persuasive, friendly, and helpful and be the firm boss at the same time. My truck would come in handy in getting the supplies together and I would help each one when the need arose.
When the renovation crew assembled in my presence, they were all eager to get going – the sooner they started to work, the sooner they would be paid. Only Jimmy seemed inclined to delay - as long as I didn't mind loaning him money to go down to the liquor store to get his malt liquor. Jimmy would visit any store so long as it sold liquor but he preferred the one on Southern Ave on the Maryland side simply because it was cheaper and the beer was chilled.
With all the hiccups of getting started, we finally got started. The initial task was to clear the house of all the junk. The old 1970s era RCA CRT TV set with gargantuan speakers on both sides had to go. As cumbersome as a solid desk, it seemed ten times heavier when we tried to carry it out. The threadbare sofas, the stained chairs, the worn and creaky beds, the dust-laden drapes – everything, just everything had to go. It did not make it easier for us with all the souvenirs, photographs, and trinkets of the past lying around. Looking at them, I felt an interloper. Technically, the house had to be free and clear of all items before we closed the deal and Tracy promised do handle this without delay. Although I rather disapproved of the unsentimental and flatly impersonal approach, I could see she didn’t care about the memories anymore and wanted to move on and leave the past well behind. John, on the other hand, seemed inclined to take time to reminisce, to go over stuff slowly, reflectively and keep the past snugly tucked in the present. I felt distinctly uncomfortable as I stood watching John pore over old scrapbooks and photo albums, talking to himself, tracing his fingers over images, smiling at times, and then allowing the tears to stream down his cheeks. It seemed obvious that he missed Anne – the only mother he had ever known. Yet, for all the love and caring Anne had given him, John had not made anything worthwhile of his life. He never reciprocated Anne’s affection by helping out in the house or by doing things for her. He did not finish school and became a further burden as a school dropout. Lacking commitment and reliability, he could not hold a job. Having taken one disappointment after another from John, Sonny grew disillusioned and finally put him away as belonging to the dregs of humankind. However, he lived with Anne and Sonny until he got himself involved with a woman in Washington DC when he was in his twenties and got her pregnant with his child. He could not bring himself to marry her and settle down into stable married life. He kept himself aloof from long-term relationships until he traveled to North Carolina when in his thirties and married a woman there and had more children. Yet, even then, the shifty, vacillating streak in his character surfaced and he was unable to hold onto a job for long and was soon on the brink of poverty with several mouths to feed. Weak and easily inflamed, John turned on the people closest to him, got himself arrested for battery and assault, and spent several months in prison. His marriage was a farce and his children disliked him. After sixteen years, in 1992, he decided to break ties with North Carolina and get back to Washington DC. Now, as John sat lost amidst the memories, I could almost feel sorry for him.
I had agreed to rent two monstrous forty-foot dumpsters as an incentive to move things along but I had not inquired the price beforehand. I was, thus, flabbergasted when I got the bill. Each dumpster was $450. It took no more than a couple of hours to fill them to the brim with broken down furniture, a rusted up refrigerator, a tired and worn out stove, faded and torn clothes.I was paying almost a thousand dollars just for trash removal!Oh, well, I thought. It had to be done anyway. Apart from paying for the dumpsters, I was determined to make myself scarce and to let Tracy and John handle the clearing. I didn’t want to intrude on their privacy. Letting go of the past, unraveling memories was such a personal thing. The only humane thing was to leave them alone.
After the house was emptied of trash, I began the renovation process in earnest. It started with a bang, literally. It was 5.30 and the late evening sun was filtering in through the windows.Blam!Blam! The blast of a double-barrel gun pierced the relative quiet of the sunset hour. The men kept on working as if gunshots were part of a normal workday. I stared out the window, my nerves tingling with a rush if anxiety. A
police cruiser came by and parked across the road. I moved away form view. The best thing was to stay away from it all.
My thoughts slipped back to Southern Avenue, the notorious line of demarcation between Maryland and the District of Columbia. In the past, drug dealers and punks would gather in this area furtively, and handle their dealings in stealth and silence. They were always alert to cruisers passing by. When suspicions were aroused and the police turn up to investigate, the drug dealers simply cross the border from DC to Maryland or vice versa. This worked amazingly well for the bad guys and there was precious little that law enforcement could do but to stare in utter amazement. Sometimes the drug dealers would unceremoniously run into a wooded area or through a footpath that snaked between brick houses. After all, they knew all the shortcuts even better than the cops. They knew the art of self-preservation like the palm of their hands. They knew the places where the lights were out, which houses were vacant, and which blocks were rarely patrolled by the police. And the footpath was littered with debris as if a tornado had rolled through and picked up everything in its path. Empty bottles of Richards Wild Irish Rose, malt liquor bottles and folded bottle caps used to cook heroin. An empty $10 bag of crack cocaine was tossed carelessly nearby. The drug dealers took over the border community like a monstrous grip on a piece of fragile ceramic dish. There was a time that the footpaths were the quickest and most convenient connection between DC and Maryland. Now it was too dangerous to transit it even in broad daylight.
As I moved away from the window, I was greeted by a choking cloud of dust. It was as if a tornado swept through, and I calmly waited for a few minutes for it to blow over and for the cloud to settle. I stood by and watched John repeatedly bashing a sledge hammer against the wall, his face a caked mask in a thick mat of gray and brown. As I stood at the door, he continued as if he didn’t see me. Then I called his name a couple of times. Finally he turned to look at me and smiled from ear to ear. He glanced down at his watch. We were supposed to go to Home Depot that evening, but I figured—what the heck—I would join him. I had a tough day at work and smashing the heavy sledge hammer against the brittle plaster and plywood was amazingly therapeutic.
The purpose of this Web-book is to provide a portrait of life in the community east of the Anacostia River, often referred by Locals as Ward 8.
This portrait is a narrative non-fiction and is true to life with the exception of some name and character changes to protect individuals' privacy.
The life story of our main character, Sonny Williams, is true based on observations and interviews that I conducted.
In this book, I am combining two distinct but mutually linked sections that have similar themes and messages:
1) My observations and experiences in DC obtained through interactions with my contractors while renovating my fixer-upper on 500 Lebaum Street. (For ease of use, these chapters physically reside in another site:www.runinmaverick.blogspot.com but are available on this blog via the link list provided on the right-hand column.)
While renovating the house, I befriended several of my contractors who provide me a first-hand view of Ward 8 as well as their suggestions on how to improve the neighborhood.
2) The life story of Sonny Williams, the main character of the story who purchased 500 Lebaum Street in 1968 and sold it to me via his daughter as a power of attorney, 35 years later.
When Sonny and Anne purchased their newlywed home, the area in Congress Heights was lively and vibrant. Then came the gangs and the strip clubs, heroin and crack and the once idyllic community went downhill fast.
Through Sonny's voice, I describe his observations and explanations of how Ward 8 turned from neighborly to downright dangerous in a matter of several years.
How to Read
The best way to read this web-book is via the link list that is provided on the right-hand column of the blog. These links are synched together via two separate blogs (My Story and Sonny's Story)
Do I have to follow the Chapters chonologically?
Although it is recommended to read the Web-book by the sequence provided on the link list, you are more than welcome to randomly browse the modules below to sample and try out certain chapters or certain topics that interest you.
What makes this Web-Book different?
1) The "RUNIN" format -- a logical and effective new way to better understand and frame the content. Click here for more information on what "RUNIN" means and stands for.
2) The use of Social Media Widgets provide a more broader and in-depth background information delivering context, education and understanding.
YouTube of old news reports
Google Earth and images
Old Headlines
Wikipedia Widgets
Podcasts of Chapter materials as well as sound effects and narratives spaced strategically throughout the chapters that provide context and understanding
Links of Relevant News Stories
Snap Shots providing contextual content info of all hyperlinks
Timelines
Graphs
Word Pictures from Wordle
Comments and Reactions from Readers
Etc.
Why This Approach?
Because I believe that reading should be interactive, messages should be framed and learning should be visualized.
Living and Breathing Web-Book
As of Jan 1, 2009, I am working on Chapt 30. When the Web-book is completed by the end of 2010, there will be approximately 100 chapters available. However the Web-Book is content-rich and message-driven, so you are highly encouraged to start reading today.
Do you have other RUNIN projects?
Yes, I am working on several. The links are provided via the drop down bar to your right. However, this is the only Web-Book that I'm currently working on.
Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoy the Web-book. Please let me know if you have any questions or inputs.
As stomachs growled in incongruous beat, the ragged gang stopped at a McDonalds outlet, famished and feeble. I bought Jimmy a Big Mac with an extra handful of ketchup and Jerry a fish sandwich with cheese and extra lettuce. Now I had two contented passengers munching noisily to express their satisfaction. All they probably needed now was their bottle. Then they would be really living the Anacostia High Life.
On the way back home we took a rough and dusty shortcut across Wheeler Road.Jimmy was familiar with the area nearWheeler Road historically called “The Bottoms.”This name originated from the fact that the area was not part of Bellevue or Congress Heights, but was located at the bottom of the 7thStreet hill.
The name Congress Heights, on the other hand, was derived from the community's setting perched elegantly on top of a hill offering a splendid and unhindered view of downtown DC. Paradoxically, despite the ideal location and pristine view,the name carried negative connotations. This area boasted what was probably the worst public housing in the city: Valley Green. In 1961, more than 300 apartment units rose from the decaying dirt lots, with the hope and aspiration for a better, more wholesome life for the oppressed and impoverished.
Though the buildings were built with high standards, trash and sanitation had become an unexpected luxury.
The kind of deprived, poverty-riddled community that was housed there was a fertile breeding ground for every kind of vice imaginable. The area was deemed Danang dangerous and the drug situation skyrocketed to the point that even 7D (the Metropolitan Police Department serving the most impoverished Ward) were afraid to come out when called.Often times police cruisers would get pelted by kids throwing rocks from apartment buildings.The cops, on the other hand did not give up. They decided to be resourceful in busting the drug dealers.They hid inside PEPCO trucks, ambulances, ice cream trucks, whatever it took, to make a bust.
“Valley Green was known to have a pervert who would sit inside his van and holler out at young girls walking to see friends and offer them money to go behind the building," Jerry said. "It took a long time for the cops to arrest the man.I hope he is rotting in his cell for the remainder of his f..... life.”
Jimmy lost his earlier moroseness and joined in enthusiastically, “And there were gangs, one prominent one was called “Valley Green”.Their turf was on Varney Street from Wheeler to the Greater Southeast hospital.Their rivalry with Ballou and Condon Terrace was legendary.It all started with a dumb beef and it got worse and worse until some punk got shot.”
(For more info, please read the 1996 NYT story "Monument to Decay" re: Valley Green)
As memories flooded in, Jimmy became livelier. “Sometimes there would be gang fights with the gangs from Condon Terrace or Trenton Park. And I know that the gang from Condon Terrace is still standing and tough.They are almost as tough as the Anacostia gang known as Choppa City—this group has been known to attack the metrobuses.”
As the violence grew to unmanageable levels, the city fathers had to urgently shut down the housing scheme in the mid-1990s. When Valley Green closed, a lot of the winos and the dregs of society scurried up the hill to Congress Heights.As if a ghostly image of the past, I could see an echo of it all today. Dirty-looking, shabbily dressed men sat outside liquor stores, scratching their disheveled, grimy hair, smoking, playing dominoes, loitering around and getting in people’s way.
In complete contrast to the housing provided earlier, the Valley Green project was replaced by the Wheeler Creek housing complex which comprised of $100K town homes and several single family homes.
Built in 2002, it was a Hope VI private, public venture and a proud model for Washington DC that had become its gold standard. It was an image-building project, with the goal of Hope VI being to change the physical shape of public housing by demolishing severely distressed projects. So it happened that ugly, tawdry high rise buildings and barrack-style apartments became things of the past and got duly replaced with garden-style apartments and town houses that changed the ambience of the surroundings.
Wheeler Road was notorious for its drug deals as well.Jimmy seemed knowledgeable about the goings on. He said, “I remember a time, when these folks and fiends would just smoke weed in the open air so much -- we were virtually free from police intervention. Hell, I was one of them.But I never got messed up on the hard dope.Until..”
“What? Hard dope?” I asked innocently.
“Hell, heroin, PCP, weed," Jimmy replied in a matter of fact way. “These were the serious dopers who made real money and hired an army to protect them.They didn’t sell just to anyone on the street and they were true business people, organized crime, you might say.”
Jerry was eager to add his own memories. “Eventually the cops busted them. I remember cuz Pops and I remember the Feds coming down like SWAT charging in to boot their asses during a huge sting on Oakwood Street back in the 70s.”
And, for a while Lebaum Street and the environs had returned to a semblance of normalcy. Yet, it was only a short reprieve. Crack cocaine hit the area in the mid-80’s and there was no way to escape the mire of addictive narcotics.Unlike dope, crack was cheap, easy to obtain, and available even to women and children. Pinch a little of it with your thumb and get a nickel, two nickels or a dime’s worth of affordable coke. It was an open field for all, no longer limited to the hardcore, and as expected, spread in the community like wildfire.With little concern among city authorities and the Federal Government, the situation simply got out of control. Although PCP, Heroin and cocaine were used occasionally, they were not popular with the blacks as they were well beyond the range they could afford. The distribution was usually handled by big time dealers and being a downer, a couple of hits and you had enough for the whole day.
Having got back to the house and the repairs, we decided to do a quick walkthrough as a meaningful way to wrap up for the day. Jimmy explained how it important it was to lay out the floor plan and to measure everything to the “T.” I was somewhat surprised by his astuteness. “Carpentry and construction are like a chess game.You need patience, planning and concentration. You can’t just go for the easy option.You have to go for what’s beyond and you have to get a feel for what’s happening on the board.” I could do little else but nod in assent.
I glanced out of the window. Dusk had turned to inky blue and the yellow lights of neighborhood houses glowed from here and there. A feeling of weariness flung itself on me. A week’s hard work was getting to us all. “Let’s go out,” I suggested. “I don’t particularly care where, someplace local, someplace that serves cocktail that is made strong, not the watered-kind shit, and some place we could meet people and have a good time.” Jerry was not enamored of the idea. He pleaded tiredness and wanted to go home; besides he had to watch Tracy’s son, Donald.
So, in the end, it was only Jimmy and me. We locked up the house, got into my truck and drove along with the windows rolled down, past the squalid areas of Congress Heights on 15thstreet known locally as the Washington Highlands.
Filled wing to wing with 4-storyed, garden-style apartment buildings, they were decrepit, rat-infested and needed to be condemned immediately. A pregnant mother, carrying a baby and dragging two more kids by the hand, looked harried in the lamp light as we passed by. A couple of alcoholics in tattered clothing slouched on a tree stump, sipping from their brown paper bags and staring mindlessly at the roaring traffic.
There were a cluster of young men across the street by a large oak tree apparently dealing. They had their scouts out who were observing us as we drove by. They noticed the blue truck and the out-of-state license plate and they looked me straight in the eye. That was it. This was the proverbial trigger that sent Jimmy on his diatribe. He hated White Supremacy not because he thought they were racist but because they were suppressing the poor people.
“The powerful muckety mucks in the nation’s capital have all given up on the poor folk east of the river. They have allowed teenage pregnancy to get out of hand, disease and drugs are rampant, there are limited services and programs for kids after school. So what do they do? They have no role models. So they look up to the hard-core, hard drug brother to serve as their role models.Nobody loves them but these ex-cons will take them into their arms. What do you think will happen? This is an easy ticket to the life of hard drugs and crime.”
Jimmy was not allowing me a word edgeways. I had to fight for his attention. “Why do you point the finger at our nation’s leaders? Don’t you think they can each help themselves out of their situation?”
“Sure, we are all accountable for our actions and inactions. However, the government is fully aware that there is abject poverty just a stone’s throw from the nation’s capital. Yet they continue to turn a blind eye to the problem. If they wanted to do something about it, they would have by now,” Jimmy gushed with passion. “And it’s not just the whites. The black leaders have also turned away from us, especially when they come to office and become powerful and influential. The current mayor is one of them, Yale educated and all. If they cared for us, they wouldn’t issue a permit to have a liquor store in every corner.”
I gave his words some thought and felt some surprise. “I thought the problem in this area was drugs. Drugs is the true menace isn’t it?”
“Sure is. It is not just the drug but the selling, marketing and consumption that puts money into a tout’s pockets. Overnight, by the hood’s standards, they become wealthy and they become popular cuz all of a sudden they are wearing nice jeans and a nice jacket.”
I nodded in understanding “So the choice is personal. The kids choose to use drugs and their parents have allowed them to get out of hand.”
Getting out of hand was indeed what it was. Teenaged kids, bleary-eyed, aggressive manner and drugs. That was the be all and end all of their lives. I didn’t blame Jerry for his anger. I let him get it out of his system and listened patiently. “ They send troops to Afghanistan and Iraq.Why can’t they send the National Guard and get the drugs out once and for all? This is not Al Qaida.”
It appeared unfortunate that the Feds chose not to take this option. The black men thus got caught in a web of social relations, economic conditions and political predicaments that lent bleak prospects to their future. Unemployment among black men had reached epidemic proportions. About half of the young black males had no work experience. They did not attend school. Suicide hit sky high. More men had died of suicide in one year, than the number of black men who were killed in Vietnam.
References:
(1) Photo of Wheeler Estates taken by Richard Layman (www.urbanplacesandspaces.blogspot.com)
This story is about how a feud that started after a Barry Farm youth stole a coat from a teenager in Condon Terrace resulted in a shooting in a Ballou HS cafeteria.
